


shine a light

by Cephied_Variable



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-03
Updated: 2011-10-04
Packaged: 2017-10-16 02:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cephied_Variable/pseuds/Cephied_Variable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Short Pieces and Kink Meme Fills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. gift of one liners (dave/terezi)

Written anonymously for Captchalogue way waaaaay waaaaaaaay back in the day [Right Here](http://captchalogue.livejournal.com/1365.html?thread=686677#t686677).

 

 

\-- gallowsCalibrator [GC] began trolling turntechGodhead [TG] --

GC: D4V3!!!  
TG: oh wow things i don't need more of:  
TG: terezi's bullshit  
TG: yup

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] has blocked gallowsCalibrator [GC] --

 

\- but the ruins of Earth and Alternia are inextricably wound together now (that's part of the bullshit) and she just tracks him down. He hears the click-clack-click of her cane tapping against the stone and doesn't bother to run. He's too cool for that and besides, Terezi's a crazy bitch who will just sniff him down like a vampiric bloodhound anyway and that's _not even a metaphor_. He shoves his hands in his pockets and leans back against the wall, watching the fractured Veil turn above him; he doesn't even look at her when she stops in front of him, mouth cracked wide open with her creepy, toothy smile. Not that it matters much cause she's blind and all but it's the principle of the matter.

"You can't do this, Dave. I'm going to stop you!"

"How did you even fucking find out?" Dave doesn't quite curb the edge in his voice, but it's close enough. Not even Rose has figured it out yet although he's sure that's more a case of exceptional and unusual short-sightedness on her part. Hard to pick apart your stoic friend's heroic but suicidal intentions when you're sneaking around planning your own dumbshit kamikazee assault.

Terezi clasps her hands over the top of her cane and tips her head to one side, "Because blind people have senses that other people don't. And because you're pretty obvious, Dave. Not very cool at all this time."

Get this girl out of my head. She's like some terrible love song circa 1995, always inside his mind and reading his heart or whatever. Real Bryan Adams stuff going on here, "Not nearly as endearing as you think it is," he mutters.

"Dave, relax."

"I am. Chilling out. Relaxing. I'm maxing all cool." he says, his hands shaking.

Her smile folds in on itself, turning into one of those weird pouts she does, like that dumb emoticon with the question mark in it, "Is this you, Dave?" she asks, resting her cane against her side and framing Dave inside her thumbs and forefigners, "Standing here, shaking and upset- all terrified and convinced that you're the most expendable player?"

"Not nearly as endearing as you think it is." he repeats steadily, "And please don't tell me that you can smell shaking. The rest I can buy, but that's too much. My belief is suspended like a crack-addicted trapieze artist at this point."

"I told you already. I know you better than you know yourself! Your mind is an open book to me right now and you don't have your mind made up about this nearly as much as you think." she's still got her fingers pressed together like a fake camera frame and despite what he said earlier, it is a little endearing. There's always been a bit of gravity between him and Terezi- she gets him like a knife cutting through butter. Like Rose does, really, except instead of measured and helpful she's kind of a sociopath and she's kind of shameless and

 _Dave kind of ~~likes her~~_

"Hey, T-Z, that's what I meant about you and my grill. You are all up in it."

"Maybe just a little," she admits, her hands falling to her side in a dismissive shrug, "But this time it's for the Greater Good!" and the way she says it you just know it has capital letters, "I know what you told John and you're lucky that he's a moron and believes that a Doomed Dave blowing up the Green Sun will really result in anything except a paradoxical split timeline." here, she has the audacity to poke Dave in the chest, "But I know better than that. I've seen the future so you should believe me here, Dave. You're not expendable."

"Oh I see. But Rose is." he counters flatly. Terezi just sighs and gestures uselessly with one hand.

"The battlefield on Skaia is kind of like a chess board, right? So think of it as chess. John is the King. You gotta keep him. Rose is the Queen- she can make the most moves, but it's not over if she's gone. You-"

"Yeah, and Jade?"

Terezi's frown twists a little, "Look, I have no idea what Jade is, okay. She's a weirdo. But you. You're ever other piece on the board. That means we can lose a few of you, Dave, bits and pieces, but when you're all used up _the game can't be played_. At all."

"So you're saying," and Dave has to take a deep breath to keep his voice from cracking, "That if I die, it's an auto-lose. Game over, the last dance, the last duet for you and me?"

"Basically, yeah. It's more complicated than that, but the point is you have to live. Trust me- I'm just trying to help."

Dave considers her for a long, tense moment. She's not showing any teeth, her shoulders slumped but her pose confident. One of her eyebrows is quirked but that might not mean anything at all- Terezi's poker face isn't the same as his; it's the opposite and it's even more (impossibly) inscrutable. But the only thing worse than dying he can imagine is letting Rose go through with her plan and sacrifice herself. "I don't believe you." he says finally. It's not really true. He kind of does. He kind of believes Terezi's bullshit but like hell if he's going to ever admit that.

Not one to be defeated so easily, Terezi reaches for his face, her rough-skinned fingers brushing against his cheekbones delicately and for about five whole really terrible seconds Dave is worried that she's going to kiss him. Instead, she gently lifts his sunglasses off the bridge of his nose and hides them behind her back and because the alternative is to flail at her like an idiot, Dave fufills her creepy red fetish and stares at her evenly.

"Have I ever lied to you?" she wonders, an odd sincerity tugging all pout-faced and wounded at the edge of her words and features.

"You-" Dave doesn't finish his thought but dead Johns and Doomed Daves and God Tiers are all in there, unspoken and implied.

"To _you_." she repeats with emphasis, "Have I ever lied to you. I've lied a whole lot to other people, Dave, but not to you. Not like I'm gonna start now."

Dave feels his composure slipping as he runs out of ways to belittle her argument. He slumps against the wall and tries to sort of make it like the shadow of his bangs covers his eyes which is just about the lamest thing he could be doing but, "Are you saying that Rose is supposed to die? This is something that's supposed to happen?"

Terezi sets her jaw firmly, pauses for moment, and then nods. Resolutely.

"... okay." Dave whispers and he covers his face with one hand. Eventually, she gives him back his sunglasses.

The next day Rose leaves

with the **tumor**

headed for the Green Sun.

"It's okay." Terezi says when she doesn't come back, "We've got an extra Seer."


	2. take this chance to make out with yourself (dave/dave + rose)

Originall written for the kinkmeme [right here](http://community.livejournal.com/homesmut/4645.html?thread=1203493#t1203493).

 

 

 **  
TT: As the only one who seems at all concerned with the psychological implications of our journey, I just want you to know that I Do Not Approve of whatever it is it looks like you're about to do.  
TG: you can say that rose but i read your weird wizard slash  
TG: euphemisms about dueling wands dripping of the page like wet shame  
TT: T-those...  
TT: Those aren't  
TT: I mean  
TT: It's not the same thing at all! Those relationships were painstakingly cultivated and implied through subtle prose over hundreds of pages!  
TG: hey now dont turn this into something about  
TG: how i don't know my inner psyche and this is some weird homoerotic repression rooted in  
TG: i dunno  
TG: my childhood relationship with the blender or whatever  
TT: With the blender? No. With your brother and his obsession with puppets? Possibly.  
TG: this again  
TT: Ventriloquism is an art of projecting oneself through an inanimate conduit. You were only able to learn intimacy through second-hand means- it makes perfect sense that on the cusp of manhood you would find it appealing to experiment with physical intimacy through a non-threatening, internalized method. However, just because you can doesn't mean that you should.  
TG: okay  
TG: gotta be honest here rose my eyes just glazed over  
TG: hard to concentrate when im face to face with the coolest guy still alive  
TG: pretty intimidating actually  
TG: im a hard guy to impress  
TG: i dont know if im cool enough for me  
TT: This isn't a joke? Are you seriously going to...?  
TG: he's starting to look impatient  
TG: could disappear any minute  
TT: Dave, wait!   
**

Dave tips his head to one side and looks himself over slowly. Yeah, he's a pretty fine specimen of almost-teenaged material. If he were a girl or gay(er?), he could dig that. Hair carelessly mussed to one side, sunglasses masking any discernible facial expression. In a few years he could graduate to maybe some plugs and one of those checkered scarves indie photographers always wear. Hopefully that shit'll be way out of style by the time he hits high school.

"We doing this?" other Dave asks.

Dave nods, "Where doin this."

They come together slowly, not out of hesitation but because the best thing about making out with yourself is that you're totally on the same wavelength. Their fingers slowly entwine as they attempt to line their bodies up awkwardly, a perfect re-imagining of the referenced SBHJ panel. Extra-ironic because of the latent homoerotic undertones between Bro and Jeff which are, by the way, totally intentional.

Their lips finally meet and its... kind of terrible. Too many teeth all over the place and other!Dave's lips are kind of chapped presumably from time spent in Jade's world. Dave draws back, frowning, and tries again, this time easing into kiss, rolling their lips together experimentally. Other!Dave's hands rest against his hip bones, one thumb running a suggestive line along the ridge. Well, sort of suggestive at least. It's a good effort. Dave grabs his other self's butt in a last ditch attempt to heat things up, but it elicits nothing but an irritated sigh.

"Well, that was disappointing," Other!Dave shrugs his clothes back into place.

"Yeah. Guess I owe Terezi four grubbings. Whatever those are."

Other!Dave actually looks alarmed for a moment and holds his hands up in a warning pose, "Oh, dude no."

"No?"

"I think that's sexual or something. Don't do the Terezi thing, man. Karkat was right. They're all crazy."

"Uh," Dave doesn't have time to formulate a response before his other!self blinks away, lost again to timeline.

Well. So much for that.

 

TT: Ha.  
TG: dont  
TG: say anything  
TT: I won't say "anything". I'll say two things- first, that I am relieved to discover you are less narcissistic than I'd previously assumed.  
TG: and  
TT: Terrible show, Dave. I would have made far better use of the opportunity.  
TG: wow


	3. interrogation (mindfang/redglare)

Mindfang comes awake to patterns of pain inching along the circumference of her retinas. She closes her eyes against the searing light and is rewarded with a smart slap across the mouth. Smart, because it is a practiced hit; knuckles and nails aligned at an expert angle, just enough force to sting but not enough to bruise. Never bruise. Mindfang has enjoyed such hits from Legislacerators both beloved and reviled, but the light... the light is new.

"Open," a voice demands from somewhere beyond the haze. When she doesn't comply, her left eye is pried open. Sharp, clever fingers. The light is dizzying, but she can make out a dark figure against the glare- a slight women with a rigid posture and the brightest eyes... are they eyes?

"Neophyte Redglare?" Mindfang's voice cracks when she speaks. Her throat is drier than she anticipated and she realizes that she has no idea how long she was out, "You are even younger than I expected." this isn't flattery nor is it a lie. As her vision begins to adjust to the light (but still the pain pain pain) she can make out the other troll's features- heart shaped face tapered into a delicately pointed chin; high cheekbones and a dainty nose. There is a girlishness about her features so utterly at odds with her efficient demeanor.

The Legislacerator retrieves from the folds of her uniform a small clamp and carefully eases it into the hollow around Mindfang's eye. Instinctively, she attempts to blink but her eyelids are firmly secured. She winces, "Cleverer too. I am impressed. As a seasoned veteran of the interrogation, I can qualify this experience as... readily and immediately evocative."

Redglare says nothing. She straightens, wrists crossed at an even angle behind her back as she paces the room slowly, pausing to examine details on the wall that Mindfang is blind to. How does she see in all this light? The Neophyte retreats to a far corner beyond Mindfang's laboured sight. Of course- the opening was strong, but the follow-up is incompetent. What more could one expect from a mere Neophyte?

"Darling, there is no reason to be intimidated," Mindfang purrs in a parched cackle. Her opened eye was beginning to sear, twitching violently in its socket as the other blinks frantically. She sweeps her leg our surreptitiously- perhaps a mere convulsion of pain and nothing more- searching the floor for cracks, for stones, for anything useful, "I am aware that my reputation precedes me somewhat, but you have already come further than I could have possibly imagined in even the most fevered dreams." she curls her spindley fingers towards her wrist, tugging experimentally at the bonds, "Whatever happens next between you and I, Redglare, you have already accomplished a task deemed impossible by your contemporaries."

Mindfang manages to slip her forefinger under a layer of rope. Suddenly there is another hand entwined with hers, yanking the offending digit from it's secret task and folding it against her knuckle. Redglare is behind her. Mindfang hisses a curse and swallows her pain, eyes going unfocused again in the unforgiving light.

"Their praise means nothing to me, as yours means nothing to me. There is only one thing that matters to me."

"Oh?" Mindfang wonders shakily, "And what is that?"

Redglare doesn't answer. Instead she tangles her hand in Mindfang's hair and yanks her head back.

"You are..." the Marquise's breath is caught in her throat, "... a truly exquisite creature. You are aware, of course, that I am currenly on the hunt for a new Kismesi-"

Hair thread through clever fingers, Redglare pulls, twisting Mindfang's head until they're staring at each other, "Had I any respect for you or your position, I might find such a proposition an honour. As it stands, Spinneret Mindfang, I have studied your ways and learnt your mind. I know you better that you know yourself and I am disgusted. This interrogation has only just begun. By the time I am finished, you will understand my angle of interpretation and, I am certain, come to agree with it."

Redglare smiles thinly showing every single one of her perfectly spaced teeth. Marquise Spinneret Mindfang- scourge of the Empire, Master of pirates- stares into the Neophyte's empty, empty eyes and take a rare moment for self reflection. It was a mistake she realizes fleetingly, to underestimate this one.


	4. colours (rose/kanaya)

Kanaya kept pieces of Alternia with her- not just the Matriorb... seeds, flowers, stems, rocks, pieces of dried fruit and handfulls of grass. She's growing a new Alternia here in the Catskills- Korilob Blossoms, Virgin Grass, Blood Lilies and Nub-Suckling Serpent Vines. The matriorb is gone. Her people are dead. This garden and Rose are her entire world. Rose who comes to visit her once a week with bags of clammy, cold blood and her schoolbooks slung over one shoulder; who talks to Kanaya about her Honours Thesis and her Classes and how The Others are doing as Kanaya calmly sips the blood from a chipped teacup and pretends that It's Enough.

It's not. Kanaya knows that without the full spectrum she will fade, one colour at a time.

Terezi and Sollux stop by to give charity when they can but Kanaya is living in a dream-state in her deadworld garden, never famished but always starving. Rose is a bright spot, sitting beside her with a thick text spread over her lap and their shoulders not quite touching. Kanaya is pretending to read as well (Earth culture, a constant fascination to her these days; what else is there?) but she's distracted by their proximity.

Around them are the remnants of a picnic and a conversation- Rose rifles through the items nonchalantly between paragraphs, Kanaya's bright eyes affixed to her clever, clever fingers. The girl has the lipstick out and poised, dipping heavy against the curve of her lower lip before Kanaya even thinks to remember why it's a bad idea. Her hand flies to her mouth and she gasps, "Rose, don't-" but Rose just quirks a quizzical eyebrow at her, lips a shimmering jade heart, and begins to ask:

"What's wro-" before her eyes roll back in her head and she collapses.

Kanaya is bent over her frantically and immediately, hands clasped around shoulders and voice a desperate plea, "Rose, Rose, please-" her lipstick is made from the pollen of Virgin Grass, possibly a toxin to aliens like Rose. Almost certainly considering her friend's reaction. Rose's eyes are not quite closed. Her hands fist in her skirt and her pupils twitch exactly twice (Kanaya counted) before she comes alive again with a sharp and panicked inhale, grabbing the troll's shirt to pull her in for a sloppy, shaky kiss. Kanaya does not kiss back and Rose falls away, frowning with a knot between her eyebrows.

"Touch me." she demands in a rasping voice.

"Lalonde, this is hardly the time for-"

"It's not," Rose agrees hastily, "But just do it." she places one of Kanaya's hands over her breast sort of messily, as if that were proper instruction. Oh, of course Kanaya realizes dumbly, mother grubs consume Virgin Grass. It must be...

She has a brief and quiet moral debate about whether or not this could be construed as Taking Advantage of her dearest friend that is interrupted when she absently moves her thumb and elicits from Rose the most interesting and shameless keen of pleasure. Kanaya smiles a little deviously- showing only a few of her teeth- and obliges Rose's request. It's very rare that she takes anything for herself... how can she say no?

Their kisses are careful and the touches agonizingly slow. Kanaya has done A Lot of Reading but her practical knowledge of the human body is astoundingly limited. Troll breasts are merely vestigial- nothing special- but humans seems endlessly preoccupied. Inner wrists, upper arms and the back of the neck, however, are not prized except in the most faintingly sensitive of "Harlequin" paperbacks. Experimentally, she tugs at the hem of Rose's shirt, glad when the other girl slides out of it willingly. In the afternoon sun, Kanaya's strange, glistening skin and Rose's pale, pale chest are almost the same colour. She stares at her hand as it trails down the human's ribcage, leaving shivers in its wake.

"What are you doing?" Rose demands impatiently.

"Strategizing." Kanaya chuckles.

"Don't bother," and there's all that Lalonde steel and determination in her voice, "I'll instruct you."

And she does.

When it's worn off, Rose sits up in the grass with an arm clenched over her chest, flushed the colour of her blood. Kanaya is nonplussed, fully clothed, confused but...

"Well. This was a highly embarrassing learning experience." Rose begins awkwardly, trying not to be too obvious about looking for her shirt.

"Not exactly what I was expecting in terms of cross-cultural exchange, I admit." Kanaya agrees, "But-" and she reaches out to draw her thumb across Rose's lips until it is green with lipstick. She draws a heart on the girls' cheek, "But-" she begins again, "I think this colour is good on you."

Rose's gaze flickers back, curious, "Oh?"

"Flushed is the colour." Kanaya clarifies. It's one she can still see.

She kisses Rose for real this time.


	5. fifty good years left (john/rose)

_[did you sleep well? did you dream at all? can you tell me the time?]_

The first goes like this: checker-marble floor and smeared blood, the gold-stained dust in the air choking your nervous words and her strong hand firm around your palm. You giggling, her shadowy and indistinct with eldritch throes of the bloodfester sort which _geeze you totally warned her about_. You were dizzy with godhood and the wind rung in your ears and you didn't mean a word of what you said. Not really.

But she never told you what her answer was.

 

 _[old dirt road rambling rose watching the fire as we grow]_

The second time you were joking too. That's okay, jokes are fun! You were all laughing - _even Dave was laughing_. You had Jade crooked under one arm and Karkat grumbling under the other but your eyes were on her: Rose, several feet away, watching the sun rise with pale fingers clutched weakly at her bent elbow. _You shove out from over your sister and co-friendleader and they collapse into each other like tangle buddies as you go to mischievously lean your chin over Rose's shoulder._

 _"Oh man, Rose - I bet it would make Karkat's day if we got married right now. He could be the priest and everyth-"_

 _You knew it was the wrong thing to say the moment you saw her face. It looked infinitely sad. Sad times infinity plus one. Like if the whole universe was just made of the scene in Armageddon where Liv Tyler says goodbye to Bruce Willis, that's what Rose's face looked like._

 _ _She turns to you and manages to say your name hoarsely_. You had not seen her with so little composure before, and you've never seen it again. So you hugged her, very carefully as if she were a sculpture of bath bubbles that you wanted to preserve and show off to your Dad. You mostly hugged her like that because you'd never hugged a girl before, but years later she would tell you that she had "appreciated" your "restraint"._

 

 _[we've got 50 good years left to spend out in the garden and i don't care to beg your pardon we should live until we die]_

So this time you _mean_ to mean it.

You've thought long and hard about this. You've thought about this as much as you did your graduate exams, as much as you did when trying to play Ravel's _Gaspard de la Nuit_ and the ironic thing (real ironic too, not Dave ironic) is that you were only doing those two things to impress her. To impress _Rose_ \- narrow, pale Rose. Severe Rose with her hands carefully crossed over her waist and her expression carefully neutral. Concentrated Rose, curled up in the morning sun reading a philosophy text or with her brow knit like she always does when she plays Paganini. Rose who was never a mystery to you even though -

 _"Rose I just don't understand you sometimes..."  
"Don't be ridiculous John. You know everything about me."_

 _\- even though she never was._

So you mean it this time.

And she-

 _"The answer was always yes, John._ "


	6. look up (jade/karkat)

They argue the whole way there.

Out here the stars are as bright as Jade is used to, but Karkat's never seen them so luminous. Alternia's atmosphere was thick and you could never quite see through the haze. Anyway -

"There's nothing mysterious about stars Harley, don't be asinine."

"Oh em gee, Karkat, you are totally the asinine one. Geeze - mystery is half imagination." and she makes a fluttery hand gesture then swats him in the ear.

"Keep your fucking hands on the steering wheel! Holy shit, Jade, you're gonna get us killed one of these days!"

Jade's laugh is high and tinny and whistling as she jerks the wheel hard and skids their antique motorwagen around a sharp curve. They've traveled this mountain path a hundred times by now and every time Karkat says they're gonna die.

"Hasn't happened yet." she sticks her tongue out at him and he sinks deeper into his scarf, rolling his eyes under the brim of the cap they use to hide his horns.

This is their ritual. Jade brings flowers. Karkat brings nothing because he doesn't think the dead need anything thank you very much. _"Besides, you know there's nothing in those graves. Technically, in this universe they never existed."_

 _"It doesn't even matter, Karkat, because they existed in our hearts."_

 _"That is by far the stupidest thing you've ever said. And believe me, there is some steep competition vying for that gold medal."_

Jade never learned about the real language of flowers. She likes her language better and claims that she learnt it from the flowers themselves so it has to be more accurate. Dave is poppies because " _Dave's sick beats were_ illegal." Rose is orchids and John is always a fistful of blue, blue daisies. Karkat doesn't let her pick out ones for the trolls, but she has a list in her heart and Kanaya is always white oleander, deadly and beautiful.

She talks to them. She says "John you'd be proud of Karkat he learned how prank the cops this week. I mean, technically it was lying, but I think you'd laugh anyway." and "Rose we saw this library in Greece that was so beautiful you'd die." and "Dave don't worry. I warned everyone in Odessa about stairs."

He doesn't talk to them. He quietly leans his head on her shoulder and draws into himself, listening to the reverb of her voice shuddering through her ribcage. When she gets tired, they fall on their backs in the grass and she rolls into the space he's made in the crook of his arm and he runs his autumn-yellow claws through the inky mat of her hair.

"I don't even think they'd like this shitty universe we made very much." Karkat mutters eventually.

"That would be pretty ungrateful!" Jade's lips move against the wool of his sweater, "We made it for them."

"Yeah, but they were all kind of dicks." and for the first time in a while, he cracks a smile. It's rusty and awkward, in disrepair due to misuse, but it's there. Jade giggles a little despite herself and curls into him.

"I know, but I loved them."

"Yeah, me too."

They're alone in the universe. But it's not so bad when you've got company.


End file.
